I'm writing the conclusion of The Beach House series--The Beach House, Beach House Memories, Swimming Lessons. I find myself filled with all the strong feelings I have for the characters: Lovie, Cara, Brett, Toy, Little Lovie. And the sweet Primrose Cottage that, though a house, became a character in the series. I've just returned home from fleeing Hurricane Matthew and outside my window the sounds of chain saws fill the air. I thought how very much like the opening of Beach House Memories it all is. What goes around comes around. I'm sharing with you the opening of Beach House Memories to share with you life post hurricane--and bring to mind the characters we will revisit this June!
BEACH
HOUSE MEMORIES by Mary Alice Monroe
Published
2012 Gallery Books
Chapter
One
Lovie Rutledge
believed memories were like the tides. Sometimes they rushed in with a pounding
roar to topple you over. At other times
they gently washed over you, lulling you to complacency then tugging you back,
back to halcyon days that, with the passing of years, seemed even sweeter.
She seemed to
spend more time with her memories of late, especially on evenings such as this
when the sun was a red orb that lazily descended over the Intracoastal
Waterway and the jeweled tones of the sky deepened. From the trees the pensive cries of birds
called all to home. Lovie sat on the
windward porch, still and silent, attuned to the moody hour. Sunset was her favorite time of the day, an
introspective hour when the sky brought down the curtain on what she knew were
her final days.
Lovie leaned her
snowy white head against her chair, gave a slight push with her foot, and
sighed as she rocked back and forth in a rhythmic motion, like the waves
slapping against the shore. A small
smile eased across her face.
Peace, at last,
she thought.
The wailing winds
of the hurricane that had blown across her small island a week earlier had left
in its wake the incessant guttural roar of chain saws. The Isle of Palms had been pummeled, as had
most of the South Carolina
coast. It would take weeks to clean up. As though in apology, Mother Nature graced the
island with crisp, after-storm breezes that spurred the populace to a frenzy of
repairs. Lovie was glad for the activity--the bellowing of voices, honking of horns,
laughter of children, whoops from the beach, high pitched calls of greeting as
families returned home from evacuation.
She heard in the noise the shared exuberance of hope.
And yet, Lovie longed
for the hush and lull of pace that came at the day’s end.
Stop your
complaining, old woman, she admonished.
You should be grateful that you wake up at all! Bird call or hammering on wood--whichever! The
sounds of life around her were welcome--especially now as death hovered like a
thief, waiting for its opportunity to snatch her last breath away.
Lovie sunk deeper
into the cushion and let her tired body ease as she stared out again at a riot
of flowers, and beyond, the sea. The Atlantic Ocean breathed like a serene beast snoring in
the distance. The gentle rolling water
cloaked all the secrets it held, while the earth revealed all. Ah, but she wasn’t fooled by her old
friend.
I thought you were going to take my house
with this last storm--and me along with it, she thought with a faint
chuckle. Well, I thank you for leaving us
be. At least for a little while longer. She sighed and kicked off again with her
foot. I’ve known you too long and too well not to be wise to your mercurial
nature. You appear so gentle and
peaceful tonight. But Lord help the fool
who ignores you.
Lovie suddenly
coiled in a spasm of coughing that wracked her frame, so thin now she could be
mistaken for a child. When at last the
fit subsided, she bent forward, clasping the arms of the chair, gasping for air.
“Mama! Are you okay?”
Lovie turned her
head to see Cara’s worried face inches from her own. She felt Cara’s larger
hand tighten over hers in a reassuring squeeze.
Dear, sweet, daughter, she thought as her pale blue eyes found refuge in
Cara’s dark brown ones. There were crow’s
feet at the corners, adding maturity to the wide eyed worry. Cara had been dismayed at turning forty,
crying that her youth was over and how she was on the downhill slope. Lovie knew better. Cara was still so young! So strong and confident. Lovie felt the panic that always came with the
coughing spells loosen its grip. Gradually
her breath came more easily.
She nodded weakly.
Cara’s eyes
narrowed, quickly checking for signs that Lovie needed oxygen or a dose of pain
medication. “Mama, it’s getting
chilly. Let’s go inside.”
Lovie didn’t have
the breath to answer, but she weakly shook her head no.
Cara hesitated,
then with a tsk of mild frustration, she didn’t force the issue, as she might
have just months earlier.
Lovie leaned back
again in her chair. Staring at her from
the settee across the room was a large calico cat. The cat had mysteriously appeared after the
hurricane, lost and mewling piteously. Cara fed her daily, cleaned up after
her, and petted her long fur whenever she passed. Cara called the cat, “The Uninvited Guest,”
and pretended not to care one way or the other about her. But Lovie could tell she was secretly pleased
the cat had decided to stay. It was Cara’s
first pet.
Cara was rather like
that cat, Lovie thought with some amusement.
The previous May, Lovie had asked her only daughter to come home for a
visit. She hadn’t thought Cara would
come. They’d been estranged for some
twenty years and Cara was always too busy.
Lovie had prayed that she and her headstrong daughter could patch up
their differences before she died. How
did one reconcile after so long a time?
It was in faith that she’d written, and Cara had come. In a twist of
fate, Cara had been laid off from her high powered job at an advertising agency
in Chicago . She’d
arrived at Lovie’s door at the onset of summer feeling lost and restless,
uncharacteristically adrift. She’d
stayed the summer on Isle of Palms, ostensibly to take care of her mother. And yet, over the past months Cara, like the lost
cat, had been cared for, stroked, needed.
The summer had made Cara wiser and more content-- not so quick to chase
the mouse.
And in the
process, she’d rediscovered her mother’s love. This had been the answer to
Lovie’s prayers.
It was autumn now,
however, and with the season’s end Lovie’s strength was ebbing with the
receding tide. She had terminal cancer
and both she and Cara knew that soon the Lord would call her home.
“Okay, Mama,” Cara
conceded, patting Lovie’s hand. “We’ll
sit out here a little longer. I know you hate to miss a sunset. Would you like
a cup of tea? I’ll make you one,” she
replied, not waiting for an answer.
Lovie didn’t want
tea just now, but Cara needed something to do.
Though they didn’t say the words often, Lovie knew that Cara expressed
her love with action. Cara rose effortlessly from the chair, a move Lovie could
hardly recall being able to make.
Cara was strikingly
good looking, tall and slender with glossy dark hair she usually wore pulled
back in a carefree ponytail. But tonight
was cooler and the humidity low so she let it fall unkempt to her
shoulders. It swayed in rhythm with the
few long strides it took her to cross the wooden porch.
Her gaze swept
across the porch of her beloved beach house that was showing signs of age. Time…
it passed so quickly! Where did all the
years go? How many summers had this dear
house survived? How many hurricanes? Two
white wooden rocking chairs sat side by side where mother and daughter sat most
nights to enjoy the lowcountry sunset. The
recent hurricane had destroyed her pergola, and the new screens Cara had just
installed hung in tattered shreds, waving uselessly in the offshore breezes. She
heard the teasing hum of a mosquito in her ear.
Her little house
on Ocean Boulevard
had always been a place of refuge for Lovie, a sanctuary through good times and
bad, ever since childhood. In the
twilight the quaint and tidy lines of her 1930s beach cottage appeared part of
the indigenous landscape beside the tall palms, the raucous wildflowers, clumps
of sea oats and wild grasses on the dunes.
This late in October, the sweetgrass was a breathtaking explosion of
cotton candy pink. From her seat on the porch she could see straight out to the
Atlantic Ocean without the obstruction of one
of those enormous houses that bordered the island’s coastline. It was the same view she’d always had, all
these many years. When the wind gusted, it rippled across the tall, soft grass like
rosy waves and carried her back to happier days when the island was a remote
outpost.
Lovie’s parents
had given the modest, pre-war cottage to her when she’d married and she, in
turn, would leave it to her daughter. Her house on Tradd Street in Charleston with the heirloom furniture and
silver she had already handed down to her son, Palmer. Once upon a time she’d
loved that house with a grand passion, yet never as much as she’d loved
Primrose Cottage. She’d created
wonderful memories here. The best…
